New York state lawmakers have excluded Governor Kathy Hochul’s controversial proposal to overhaul car insurance rules from their one-house budget plans, signaling potential resistance to the measure and setting the stage for further debate in Albany.
Both the state Senate and Assembly omitted the plan from their respective spending proposals, despite the governor’s push to reduce auto insurance premiums. The proposal, backed by ride-hailing giant Uber, aims to curb insurance costs by limiting who can seek damages after car crashes.
However, the initiative has faced strong criticism from legal professionals and advocates for crash victims. Opponents argue the plan would weaken the rights of injured individuals while misrepresenting the primary causes behind rising insurance costs.
Hochul and representatives of the insurance industry have maintained that escalating fraud and what they describe as “jackpot” legal payouts have significantly driven up insurers’ expenses. According to the governor, restricting certain legal claims following accidents could help reduce these costs and eventually lower premiums for drivers. Yet some lawmakers and policy observers remain unconvinced that such limits would directly translate into lower insurance rates.
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said the proposal was removed from the chamber’s budget plan because lawmakers believe it requires broader discussion before moving forward.
“The reason why we omitted the insurance proposal from the budget is because it is a broader conversation,” the Westchester Democrat told Streetsblog. She added that lawmakers share the goal of tackling fraud and reducing costs for motorists but want to examine the issue more thoroughly.
Other legislators expressed deeper skepticism. State Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens said the governor’s proposal still needs careful review to determine whether it would actually address affordability concerns.
“She’s come forward and said, ‘This is the answer to the affordability of insurance,’ but we have to analyze the data and see if that’s true,” Gianaris said. He added that lawmakers must determine whether the proposal should be revised, rejected, approved, or replaced with alternative solutions.
Assembly Member Michaelle Solages, also a Democrat from Queens, emphasized the need to balance cost relief for drivers with protections for those injured in accidents. She said lawmakers want to prioritize measures that address rising premiums but questioned whether reducing compensation for victims is the right approach.
“Drivers deserve relief from high costs,” Solages said, adding that any reform should maintain strong consumer protections while ensuring affordability.
The one-house budgets represent the Legislature’s first formal response to the governor’s executive budget proposal. The absence of car insurance reform language in both chambers’ plans may indicate a lack of consensus among lawmakers or between the Legislature and the governor’s office.
The omission also suggests the issue could become the subject of lengthy negotiations later in the legislative session, similar to last year’s contentious debate over discovery law reforms.
In addition to the insurance proposal, both chambers excluded authorization for robotaxi pilot programs in upstate New York and on Long Island. The idea had been floated earlier but was dropped by the governor, reportedly amid political considerations as she sought support from labor unions for her insurance reforms. Organized labor had voiced concern that autonomous taxis could threaten the jobs of traditional taxi and ride-hailing drivers.
Meanwhile, the state Senate included the Stop Super Speeders Act in its budget proposal. The legislation would require speed-limiting devices to be installed in the vehicles of repeat reckless drivers as part of a New York City pilot program. The bill was introduced by State Senator Andrew Gounardes of Brooklyn and is intended to curb dangerous driving behavior.
The proposal has previously faced obstacles in the Assembly. Lawmakers in that chamber did not include the measure in their budget plan, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has raised concerns about whether the policy could infringe on drivers’ due process rights.
